This week’s assortment of pulps up for auction on eBay can be found here:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/lewis-62/m.html?item=273204029542&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Not all pulps listed on eBay sell. I’ve put together a list of those you can purchase from me directly, plus ones I’ve quoted to would-be buyers directly and not taken.

Here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/Books/Pulps

Lots of Dime Detective in this online list, plus a scattering of other titles.

LAWMAN. United Artists, 1971. Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Duvall, Sheree North, Albert Salmi, Richard Jordan, John McGiver, Ralph Waite. Director: Michael Winner.

   Brutal and cynical, Lawman certainly isn’t a genial Western where the good guy takes on a villainous cattle baron, wins the love of a beautiful girl, and restores the equilibrium of the world to be on the side of justice. Rather, this Michael Winner film is a character study of an aging, brooding lawman so obsessively committed to his personal code of honor that all he is able to do is bring death and misery to all those he encounters.

   Burt Lancaster, in a role that allows little for his personal charm to shine, portrays Jared Maddox. Sporting a black leather vest and a holster, Maddox rides into the town of Sabbath. We learn through a conversation that he has with the town’s marshal Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan) that he has come to Sabbath for a very specific reason.

   Several months ago, cowhands working for the stoical cattle baron Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb) had ridden into a town by the name of Bannock and shot up the place. Although they were drunk and merely looking to blow off steam, an old man died at the hands of one of their bullets. And Maddox intends to bring the men back to Bannock to face trial.

   This sets in motion a series of violent confrontations between Maddox and the wanted men, as well as anyone who dares stand in his way. Maddox is so tied to the cause of “justice” – indeed, to his very identity as a “lawman” – that he’s increasingly blind to how much unnecessary death and misery he is bringing in his refusal to budge even slightly from his personal code.

   In that sense, Lawman stands in the tradition of those tragic Westerns in which a protagonist has outlived his time. Maddox belongs to an earlier era, in which the law was good and the outlaw was bad. Such binary demarcations are outdated in Braddock. Even the “bad” cattle baron seems to have more insight and compassion than Maddox.

   But does this mean we are supposed to not root for Maddox? Or are we supposed to be somewhat detached spectators watching Maddox make one bad decision after another? Unlike Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) in Death Wish (1974), a film Winner directed several years after Lawman, we never get to see how or why Maddox was forged into a stone cold killer.

   It’s the absence of a backstory that makes Lawman a far less compelling character study than it could have been. By the end of the film (SPOILER ALERT), when Maddox shoots a man in the back, we finally get the message. Maddox is as much a villain as a hero. And the real lawman in the film, the one we should admire is the quiet, thoughtful Cotton Ryan.

JILL McGOWN – Gone to Her Death. Lloyd & Hill #3. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1990. Fawcett, US, paperback, 1991. First published in the UK as Death of a Dancer (Macmillan, hardcover, 1989).

   If you didn’t know anything about England except for what you read in their mystery novels, you would have to conclude that there is only one thing on the minds of everyone who lives there, male or female, day or night, and that is S-E-X.

   The scene is a public boys’ school, and even so, rape, attempted rape, voyeurism, impotence, nymphomania, repressed homosexuality, it’s all here. Even Inspector Lloyd is carrying on an affair with his sergeant, Judy Hill, and she’s still married. Spare me.

Afterthoughts:   I think maybe I should add that McGown does have some sobering things to say about rape, and then secondly, underneath it all is really a pretty fair detective story. There is not a single sympathetic character in the whole book, but if you make it through to the end, you may find that the working out of the mystery is quite satisfactory.

Bibliographic Note:   There were 13 books in the Lloyd & Hill series, the last being Unlucky for Some (2004)

PORT OF MISSING GIRLS. Monogram Pictures, 1938. Harry Carey, Judith Allen, Milburn Stone, Betty Compson, Matty Fain, George Cleveland. Director: Karl Brown.

   The nominal star of this minimally interesting movie is Harry Carey, but to my mind why is he still using silent film techniques — dramatic gestures, grotesque grimaces and so on — in 1938? To my mind, Milburn Stone is by far the more natural actor.

   As Della Mason (!!), a night club singer on the lam, accused of killing the manager of the joint where she’s the star attraction, Judith Allen is very pretty, but when the movie was over I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup of other young starlets at the time.

   She ends up on the cargo ship owned by Captain Storm (Carey), and on which Milburn Stone’s character is the radio operator. The kicker is that Storm, due to circumstances in his life, soon revealed, hates women. Stone, on the other hand, is most definitely attracted.

   Forced to leave the runaway singer on land, they find what other reviewers call a brothel. The code has toned the place down a lot. It looks like no brothel I was ever in ever saw depicted on the screen. A dull, bare walls sort of tourist attraction, it’s more a place for couples to stop in on a lark and see where poor women whose lives have fallen in on them are forced to live, or in Della’s case, are singing.

   There is a lot of plot shoved into this hour plus (but just a very small plus) movie. You will be happy to know that it all works out in the end.

WENDY HORNSBY – Number 7, Rue Jacob. Maggie MacGowen #11. Perseverance Press; trade paperback; April 2018.

First Sentence:   I rang the bell at Number 7, Rue Jacob a third time.

   What should have been a relaxing, romantic reunion between documentary journalist Maggie MacGowen and her fiancée Jean-Paul Bernard is anything but. Beginning with an urgent call from Jean-Paul for Maggie, using only cash, burner phones and staying off the internet, to join him in Venice where he’d come after nearly being murdered in Greece. Together, they flee across Italy and back to Paris trying to evade cyber-stalkers and the two men trying to kill them all the while not knowing why they are being targeted.

   A cast of characters! How wonderful it is to have a book contain a cast of characters!

   Who, at some point, hasn’t had an experience similar to Maggie being tired, hungry and desperate for a shower. Hornsby conveys the feeling perfectly. However, few of us are so lucky as to be in Paris at the time. It is clear this is not going to be a romantic look at Paris as the mystery and suspense kick off immediately.

   Never read a book set in France when hungry. Even the most simple of meals sounds delectable— “French ham and cheese in a length of baguette with tomato and fresh basil” —and if one has been to France, one knows Hornsby has perfectly captured the French view of Americans— “With a broad American smile, the sort that makes the more restrained French think we might be half wits…” and yet are not put off by us. There are a number of French, and some Italian, phrases used, but even when they are not translated, their meaning is easy to understand through the context.

   Maggie is the woman most of us would love to be. She’s smart, independent, capable, has traveled the world, and is respected in her profession. Her fiancé, Jean-Paul, is someone we are just getting to know. There is a very nice recap of how Maggie and Jean-Paul met.

   That the story pays homage to Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) is a bonus and sets the scene for danger and suspense which follows. She balances the tension nicely with scenes of Maggie and Jean-Paul alone, or with members of their families. Hornsby is such a visual writer it is, at times, as though one is watching a film.

   There are a number of fascinating topics interwoven into the story, and the author has clearly done her research. The threat and capabilities of cyber-stalkers is eye-opening. There are a lot of coincidences in the story but, for the most part, they work. It is wonderfully convenient having two protagonists who are so well connected, but it does make sense considering the professions of characters, and it stays true to them.

   There is humor sprinkled throughout. It’s subtle, but it’s there— “Is that blood, sir?” “It is,” he said. “Whether it’s mine or my colleague’s, I can’t say.” “Have you law enforcement or justice department credentials?” “I have a national health card and a membership card for an American store called COSTCO,” he said. “Which I would be happy to lend you if you should want to buy a new television or a gross of frozen buffalo wings.” Although there are hints, the motive and villain are rather a surprise.

    Number 7, Rue Jacob provides danger, food, a hidden door, a bit of romance, and a very satisfying ending.

      The Maggie MacGowen series —

1. Telling Lies (1992)
2. Midnight Baby (1993)
3. Bad Intent (1994)
4. 77th Street Requiem (1995)
5. A Hard Light (1997)
6. In the Guise of Mercy (2009)
7. The Paramour’s Daughter (2010)
8. The Hanging (2012)
9. The Color of Light (2014)
10. Disturbing the Dark (2016)
11. Number 7, Rue Jacob (2018)

Lorraine Feather, the daughter of noted jazz critic Leonard Feather, is a singer-songwriter noted for her clever lyrics and convoluted wordplay in her music. “I know the Way to Brooklyn” is from her 2005 CD Dooji Wooji.

LAWRENCE BLOCK – The Topless Tulip Caper. Chip Harrison #4. Signet, paperback, 1998. Previously published as by Chip Harrison: Gold Medal P3274, paperback original, 1975.

   No Score (1970) and Chip Harrison Scores Again (1971), the first two books in Lawrence Block’s “Chip Harrison” series, all first published as by Chip Harrison, were largely sex farces with marginal criminous elements. In the first one, at least, a young lad named Chip Harrison who has never had sex does his best to change that situation.

   In the next two books, Make Out with Murder (1974) and this one, Chip has teamed up à la Archie Goodwin with a Nero Wolfe wanna-be detective named Leo Haig. The emphasis is on the detective work, but as Chip explains as he goes along, his editor at Gold Medal wants plenty of sex scenes too. Sex sells, he is told.

   The book is divided into three parts. Part one begins with Chip at a strip tease club where Haig’s latest client, Tulip Willing (not her real name), is working as a dancer. Well, strip tease is a misnomer as the dancers come out onto the stage totally nude to begin with, so there is no actual stripping involved.

   Chip describes the scene so well that I think any male reader may well wish he was there. Block is at his comedic best in part one, with a smile on every page, if not an out and out loud guffaw. What Haig has been hired to do by his client, an out and out knockout of feminine pulchritude, is to find out who killed her tank full of tropical fish.

   This has intrigued Haig because his particular obsession is not growing orchids but breeding tropical fish himself. But it is Tulip’s roommate, also a dancer (named Cherry Bounce) who is killed by curare (an unseen dart?) right as her act is coming to a close (while totally nude).

   Part two consists of Chip Harrison doing his Archie Goodwin routine, questioning suspects and so on, dallying once or twice in detail that Archie never ever got into.

   In part three Leo Haig takes over, playing Nero Wolfe to the hilt in front of a room full of all of the suspects as well as two grumpy representatives of the police department. I don’t think Lawrence Block does it as well as Rex Stout, but in its own way, part three works out in quite satisfactory fashion.

   I don’t know how you feel about reading a Nero Wolfe book with sex scenes in it, but Block is never a bad writer, and that is what this is. I’ll have to leave that particular question for you to decide for yourself. Speaking of sex scenes, one interesting aspect to the book is the ending in which Haig twits Chip a bit for being an unreliable narrator. Regarding their client, for example, did he or didn’t he?

STEVE MARTINI – Undue Influence. Paul Madriani #3. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1994. Jove, paperback, 1995. TV Movie: CBS, 1996, with Brian Dennehy as Paul Madriani.

   Martini is one of the biggies now, if not quite as hot as Grisham and Turow, at least in the same league. He’s a lawyer himself, and has been a defense attorney in both civil and criminal cases. Though this billed as a psychological thriller, it’s not that — it’s a courtroom/Big Lawyer book, which I like/don’t like.

   Paul Madriani promised his dead wife that he would watch out for her younger sister, and he’s going to get a chance very soon. He’s watching her fight a particularly nasty child custody battle with her politician ex-husband when a bad situation gets worse. Her ex’s new wife is found murdered, and she and Paul’s sister-in-law have had bitter and public battles.

   Then hard evidence is found linking her with the killing, and she is charged. Paul has no choice but to represent her, though she is uncooperative, and the case against her strong. Things are, of course, not what they seem, but what are they really? Better, or worse?

   There are two or three action scenes in this 450-pager that allow a semi-accurate use of the word “thriller,” I guess, but basically it’s a courtroom novel and a good one. Martini knows how to maintain suspense and interest, and if most of the characterizations tend toward the surface and/or one-dimensional, they’re still more than adequate to the story.

   It’s written to be a best-seller, but of its kind and with all that implies, it’s a decent book. It almost got a full two [stars] but a final plot twist and burst of violence that I thought unnecessary brought it down. He should have left well enough alone, dammit.

Bibliographic Note:   Through 2017 there are now 15 novels and one novella in the Paul Madriani series.

You just never know what you will come across on YouTube. This video features my all time favorite band with my all time favorite female singer:

JUNE NIGHT. Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden, 1940. Original title: Juninatten. Ingrid Bergman, Marianne Löfgren, Lill-Tollie Zellman, Marianne Aminoff, Olof Widgren, Gunnar Sjöberg. Director: Per Lindberg.

   In director Per Lindberg’s June Night, Ingrid Bergman delivers a stellar performance as a rebellious small town Swedish girl trying to break free from her society’s puritanical mores as well as its prurient curiosity into other people’s private lives. Although the movie begins as a crime drama, it soon reveals itself to be more of a drama and trenchant societal critique in the manner of Warner Brothers pre-code films from the early 1930s. Issues of class, social conformity in Swedish society, women working in male dominated professions, and rapidly shifting changes in romantic expectations all take center stage.

   Bergman portrays Kerstin Norbäc, a small town girl of upper middle class origins who has engaged in an illicit affair with a working class sailor. Eventually tired of him and fully cognizant that they have no future together, she laughs at him. In a fury, he shoots her, wounding her severely and forcing her into emergency surgery. But things get even worse, for when she is forced to testify against her assailant, the national press begins a salacious campaign against her. And the local townsfolk aren’t particularly sympathetic to her plight either.

   Stockholm, the big city, offers an escape for her to begin a new life and to take on a wholly new identity. Changing her name to Sara NordanÃ¥, however, doesn’t end all of her problems. She’s faced with new challenges, including those facing young women living on their own and working professional jobs in a big city. As would be expected, her former assailant eventually gets out of jail and comes to Stockholm to confront her and to win her back. And the Swedish press in the form of an intrepid dissolute reporter, an object of scorn in the film, continues to hound her despite her desire to be left alone.

   Although skillfully directed, June Night is nevertheless somewhat stilted in its presentation and plot. There’s a lack of urgency in the film, a lack of passion. The movie very much wants to say something about the role of women in Swedish society, but at the expense of fully fleshing out Bergman’s character. She’s mysterious and individualistic, but we know this more on an intellectual level than on an emotional one.